Untitled
by VeryLongLadder6
Summary: AU.  CC gets some bad news.


A/N: Hi. I hope I'm doing all this right... I got this idea this morning, and I had a free afternoon. It's not really finished and in fact reading it back it's disappointing, but real life starts again tomorrow and I need to be done with it so I'm sorry but this is it. Also, I got a little bumfuzzled with the spacing of the whole thing, so I'm sorry if it's all scrunched or too spaced out. Please tell me how I can make it better!

Disclaimer: It all belongs to someone else.

...

At the beginning she thought the only thing it could kill was the mood.  
They're in a vintage oak chair in her penthouse. She had so wanted them to reach the bedroom. She'd envisaged candles and wine, but she can't quite bring herself to regret it. His lips are on her neck, his hands on her ass, and she can't quite remember where her clothes are.

They've gone about this all wrong, with all the flirting and the innuendo, no grandiose declarations or time to cherish each other, but it feels so right, and so real; so much like the _them_ she has always dreamed of. Her hands are shaking but she's finally got his shirt undone and leans forwards to kiss his chest. His hands go to her breasts, and right before she begins to enjoy herself, he pulls back like he's been burned.

She sits back to look at him, but he doesn't meet her eyes. He is still looking at her breasts, but now he is frowning.  
Not exactly the look she was going for.

'Niles?' She whispers.  
'CC, there's something here,' he says.  
'No kidding.' She grinds against him. Suddenly, and quite without warning, he isn't even remotely interested in having sex with her. He increases the pressure on her breast.  
'Ow, what the –'  
'It's a lump.' He says.  
'What are you talking about?'

Frowning, he grabs her hand and moves it to her breast, manipulating her fingers over the offending mass. She can feel it now; it's so large and so much a part of her that she can't work out how she ever missed it. She can't help it, though she hates herself for being so cliché; she gasps.

'It's probably nothing.' She says.  
'And you'd know, what with your extensive medical training.' She gives him the glare. 'Have you had one before?' He asks.

She looks at him and sees the glint in his eye which looks an awful lot like terror. So they sit there, in the darkness, her naked and sprawled on top of him, each with their hands on her breast, and though this would have been_ unbelievably_ hot at almost any other time, she knows that after all that she most certainly isn't getting any.

After they've stood up and found all her clothes, he makes her promise to call the doctor first thing in the morning.  
It turns out to be an easy promise to break.  
She turns out to be an easy woman to read.

It takes her three days. She's been running around, working frantically on some menial task way below her pay grade. She has bags under her eyes telling him she hasn't slept in a long time, and he thinks this could just be her way of handling it until she begins snapping at Maxwell.

She comes into the kitchen, yelling for coffee. There's an apology in her eyes though that wasn't there a week ago.  
'You haven't called, have you?'  
'I will.'  
'I know,' he says, and hands her the phone.

The next day she's late. They are all in the dining room, wondering where she is. Maxwell is in a foul mood; their latest play is absurd and she's the only one who can fix it. It's only when she isn't there that they realise that nothing really works without her. She arrives at noon, by which point Max has lost his voice and has had to resort to firing people by whiteboard. She doesn't look at him as she strides into his kitchen. And he knows where she's been.

As a special kind of hell Maxwell works her until dawn. They pace around the office, snarling at each other, scribbling on things and tearing things up that they'll probably need later. When Niles comes down the stairs she is sat at the table nursing a coffee strong enough to put hairs on her chest.

'You're early,' he says.  
'Or I'm very late.'  
'You didn't go home?'  
'No, thanks to our boss I got to spend all night fixing some god-awful script about a lion-tamer. Who writes a play about a lion-tamer?' She asks with the hysteria of the sleep-deprived.  
'Who produces a play about a lion-tamer?'  
'Some shmuck trying to impress a hair-do in a short skirt.'  
'There was a time when you would have enjoyed Maxwell trapping you in his office and riding you hard all night long.'  
'There was also a time when I did nothing but drool, cry and eat.' She smiles as her eyebrow goes up, waiting for him.  
'With all the progress we've made, you can understand why your misery confuses me.' Too easy. 'Do you want anything?' It shifts, just like that.

'Many, many things Niles,' she says. He pours himself a drink and sits next to her.  
'Alright, is there anything I can get you?' He asks carefully, and she smiles.  
'No,' though she means yes. He pauses.  
'You saw the doctor?'  
'I did.'  
'And?'  
'I have to go back tomorrow for a biopsy.'  
'Are you alright?'  
'No.' And this time she means it.

He pulls her chair closer to his and if she's surprised she doesn't show it. He wraps am arm around her and pulls her into him.  
'Niles?' She says, muffled against his chest.  
'Mmhmm.'  
'I've been thinking about all the things I'll regret. If I've got –' _Cancer. Cancer. Cancer._ '- if it comes back positive.'  
'Like what, never completing your sex change? Leaving your family in Transylvania? Your hair?' His voice is even softer than his robe, and she can feel the tightness in her chest begin to relax.  
'Like never knowing what it's like to make love to you.'

It's not like there's anything more he can say, really. It might be because every time he looks at her his heart races. It might be her hips, could be her lips, but it's probably her _fucking_ laugh. So he pushes her away, stands, moves the mugs to the counter, lifts her onto the table, and kisses her like it's the last time. Only it isn't. Because once he's started he can't stop. And she's naked again, and he's inside her, and this time he'll touch her anywhere but her breast.

When she comes it's like nothing else she's ever known. He's the air she's been starved of (this whole time she thought she'd been breathing just fine). Yet with his arms around her, and his head on her chest, she is frightened, more that she might need this man than by what else may be inside her.

A couple of days later Niles is taking coffee into the office when CC gets a phone call. Maxwell grumbles, but she plucks her phone out of her bag regardless. He rolls his eyes when she leaves the room, and all of a sudden Niles doesn't seem able to move.

'Niles?' Maxwell prompts irritably.  
'Yes of course sir, I'm sorry.' And he scuttles to place the tray on the desk, where he pours. He sets out two steaming cups and clears away the dirty glasses from earlier. He picks up the tray again and moves towards the door.

She comes back in then. She walks right past him towards the desk as he stands at the doorway waiting for her to finally look at him.

When she does he drops the tray.

'Niles!' Maxwell shouts.  
'Oh I do beg your pardon sir. So careless of me. I'll fetch a dustpan.' He is saying as he stumbles backwards from the room, but he can't hear anything above the _ohshitohshitohshit_ in his head.

He can't remember going up to the roof. But there he is. It's the wrong side of spring, and he's cold, but watching the traffic calms him. He is surrounded by larger buildings, and they engulf him as he leans against the waist-high wall. There are plants up here, they're blossoming too early to survive and he wants to throw them off the roof to spare them the indignity of it all.

There's a warmth at his side. When he looks at her he feels a stabbing pain in his chest so sharp he thinks he's dying. Then he remembers she might be and it gets worse. He turns away from the traffic.

'Talk to me' he says.  
'I have cancer. They're taking it out next week, then there'll be chemotherapy.'  
'How bad is it going to get?'  
'Pretty darn.'  
'I'm going to be right here.' He says without pause. She looks at him, confused, and he feels like an idiot. 'Beside you,' he explains.  
'Oh.' She's embarrassed 'I'm not asking that of you.'  
'What _are_ you asking of me?'  
'Please don't tell Maxwell.'  
'He's going to need to know.'  
'But not now.' She says, her jaw set. 'I'm not sure yet how this is going to play out. And the lion-tamer thing is going to tank.' He's not sure which she finds harder to discuss; her death or the play  
failing. 'For the next few weeks I need to be able to stare people down. Max needs me to be the Bitch of Broadway,' she pauses. 'It's probably what I need too.'

They stand for a while in silence, and he turns back to the street below.

'What day next week?'  
'Wednesday.'  
'Need someone to drive you to the hospital?'  
'Yes.'  
'I'll get you a cab.' But they both know he'll be there.  
'Niles –' She begins, wanting to stop him from whatever he's on the verge of saying.

'CC, I don't really like you, so you're not my friend, and you're certainly not my girlfriend, partly because until last week I wasn't even convinced you were female,' he says. 'You've probably heard this before; frankly I have no idea what you are.'  
'You know I could die, right?'  
'My life is better with you in it, CC. So do me a favor, will you?'

And she kisses him. It's the damn plants. Or it's the noise of all the people and the cars and the life on the street below. Or it's him. Or it's her. Whatever it is, she needs it.

Maybe he'll feel differently when she's bloated and her hair is gone. When she's sat with her head in the toilet and her memory is shot to hell. Maybe it doesn't matter today.

She just needs to need him.

So she does.


End file.
